NASA's twin Mars rovers, nearing the third anniversary of their landings, are getting smarter as they get older. The unexpected longevity of Spirit and Opportunity is giving the space agency a chance to field-test on Mars some new capabilities useful both to these missions and future rovers. Read More

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has a new project manager. Jim Erickson, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., had been deputy project manager for the orbiter since early 2006. JPL's Jim Graf, who led the Mars robotic mission from development through flight to the red planet, is moving on to new challenges. He has joined JPL's Earth Science and Technology Directorate as deputy director. Read More

Layers on Mars are yielding history lessons revealed by instruments flying overhead and rolling across the surface. Some of the first radar and imaging results from NASA's newest Mars spacecraft, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, show details in layers of ice-rich deposits near the poles. Observed variations in the layers' thickness and composition will yield information about recent climate cycles on the red planet. Read More

New images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show three additional NASA spacecraft that have landed on Mars: the Spirit rover active on the surface since January 2004 and the two Viking landers that successfully reached the surface in 1976. Read More

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has begun the final and fastest-paced portion of its "aerobraking" process of using friction with the top of Mars' atmosphere to shrink the spacecraft's orbit. Read More

NASA's newest spacecraft at Mars has already cut the size and duration of each orbit by more than half, just 11 weeks into a 23-week process of shrinking its orbit. By other indicators, the lion's share of the job lies ahead. Read More

With a crucially timed firing of its main engines today, NASA's new mission to Mars successfully put itself into orbit around the red planet. The spacecraft, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, will provide more science data than all previous Mars missions combined. Read More

As it nears Mars on March 10, a NASA spacecraft designed to examine the red planet in unprecedented detail from low orbit will point its main thrusters forward, then fire them to slow itself enough for Mars' gravity to grab it into orbit. Read More

Related Information

Mars in a Minute: How Do You Get to Mars?

What does it take to get a spacecraft from Earth all the way to Mars? There are a few key things to consider, as explained in this 60-second video from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
› Watch Video

Exposed Ice in a Fresh Crater

At the center of this view of an area of mid-latitude northern Mars, a fresh crater about 6 meters (20 feet) in diameter holds an exposure of bright material, blue in this false-color image.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona